gables of the second house loom up behind it black against the sky. A
wooden bridge spanned the dyke and led to a wide gate. Mitchelbourne
stopped his horse at the bridge. The gate stood open and he looked
down an avenue of trees into a square of which three sides were made
by the high garden wall, and the fourth and innermost by the house.
Thus the whole length of the house fronted him, and it struck him as
very singular that neither in the lower nor the upper windows was
there anywhere a spark of light, nor was there any sound but the
tossing of the branches and the wail of the wind among the chimneys.
Not even a dog barked or rattled a chain, and from no chimney breathed
a wisp of smoke. The house in the gloom of that melancholy evening had
a singular eerie and tenantless look; and oppressive silence reigned
there; and Mitchelbourne was unaccountably conscious of a growing
aversion to it, as to something inimical and sinister.

He had crossed the mouth of a lane, he remembered, just at the first
corner of the wall. The lane ran backwards from the road, parallel
with the side wall of the garden. Mitchelbourne had a strong desire
to ride down that lane and inspect the back of the house before he
crossed the bridge into the garden. He was restrained for a moment by
the thought that such a proceeding must savour of cowardice. But only
for a moment. There had been no doubting the genuine nature of Lance's
fears and those fears were very close to Mr. Mitchelbourne now. They
were feeling like cold fingers about his heart. He was almost in the
icy grip of them.

He turned and rode down the lane until he came to the end of the wall.
A meadow stretched behind the house. Mitchelbourne unfastened the
catch of a gate with his riding whip and entered it. He found himself
upon the edge of a pool, which on the opposite side wetted the house